


Infinite Endings

by thimble



Series: SASO 2017 [21]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 02:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12267486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: Password is: "Love You For 10,000 Years."[murahimu canon reimaginings for saso fills.01: murasakibara in kirisaki daiichi02: himuro in the zone03: in which they never met04: murarakibara with a time machine]





	1. murasakibara at kirisaki daiichi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11839977#cmt11839977) prompt.

Murasakibara is not a guy so easily led. There are tips and tricks to it, because he's not without temptation or weakness, but so far only a few have learned enough to exploit it, mostly because he won't allow anyone close enough to find out. It's better this way; they won't be disappointed to realize he really does hate everything he says he hates, and they won't disappoint him with their smothering emotions. Everyone turns out to be the same, even Aka-chin. He could say Aka-chin is the worst of them all, succumbing to another part of himself like that.   
  
Still, he thinks he'd follow Aka-chin for as long as they know each other, and maybe even when they're strangers. That's who they are now, practically, with Teikou behind them and all their collective want for it to stay that way.   
  
That is, until he meets Hanamiya Makoto.   
  


* * *

  
  
He's received several recruitment offers, and nearly accepts one for a school up north (he's heard their cafeteria food is out of this world) until he's approached by someone who seems familiar, though he can't put his finger on it. Being told his name doesn't help.  
  
"Don't remember me? I'm not surprised. You're all too full of yourselves to remember your opponents," says Hanamiya, though he doesn't seem offended at all.  
  
Neither is Murasakibara, despite knowing shittalk when he hears it. "That's a sucky way of inviting me to your school. Bye." He loses interest quickly, and if this Hanamiya guy has nothing but insults for him, he'd rather have the nice-tasting food. He shoves past Hanamiya, but oddly enough the shove only makes Hanamiya laugh out loud.   
  
"I knew it. You'd be perfect." Hanamiya doesn't specify for what, exactly. "How does the prospect of not being bored at basketball sound to you?"  
  
Murasakibara stops. He pushes a chip into his mouth, contemplating it, before turning around.  
  
"Mmkay. I'll listen to you."  
  


* * *

  
  
He does more than listen, in the end.  
  
He says yes.  
  


* * *

  
  
Hana-chin may be malicious and conniving, but he keeps to his word and that's all Murasakibara needs. He's seamlessly woven into the intricacy of Hana-chin's web, his size and strength useful for Hana-chin's underhanded schemes. He's plied with snacks by the other members of his club, basketball isn't as boring as it used to be, so life is pretty good.  
  
His former teammates aren't so happy with it.   
  
Mido-chin refuses to play in their match, and Kuro-chin looks at him like he'll never forgive him after what Kirisaki Daiichi does to his team and Kiyoshi Teppei, who had insisted that Murasakibara remember his name. So demanding. He got what was coming to him.   
  
Aka-chin, too, gives him a call, his disapproval nearly immobilizing even through the phone. Murasakibara almost succumbs, almost says, 'okay, I won't do it anymore,' but then Hana-chin motions to the phone, mouths, "who's that?" and Murasakibara is reminded of what he has to lose.   
  
"Sorry, Aka-chin," he says, and hangs up.  
  


* * *

  
  
They make it through to Winter Cup, however Hana-chin insists that actually winning is secondary to having  _fun._  Murasakibara doesn't really get it, but he admits that what they've been doing is working for him so far, so he has no complaints. They breeze through their first matches, and sometimes Murasakibara isn't required to play, given how easy it's all been. Hana-chin gives him permission to leave his spot on the bench to check out the vending machine to satiate his cravings, but when he gets there there's a guy who seems to have gotten the last of the potato chips.  
  
Murasakibara levels him with a stare, but the guy only holds up the bag with an inquisitive smile.  
  
"Oh, did you want this?"   
  
Murasakibara nods. The guy laughs—to himself? at Murasakibara? whatever—and thrusts the chips at Murasakibara's chest, and it doesn't seem to be because he's scared.   
  
"Take it. My treat."   
  
He goes to leave, and Murasakibara is too dumbstruck to speak, but he does manage to ask for the guy's name. He's treated to another smile, somehow more mysterious than before.  
  
"Himuro Tatsuya."  
  


* * *

  
  
They go up against Muro-chin's team next, and try as he might, Murasakibara's heart is no longer in it. His mind keeps flickering to the potato chips in his bag, and though Muro-chin is way too hot-blooded on court, Murasakibara feels his stomach churn at imagining that serious expression turn into one of pain. He's clearly the scoring power of Yosen, which is why he's the one Hana-chin's set his sights on.   
  
At time out, the yelling begins.   
  
"What the hell's your problem?" Hana-chin has never had to raise his voice at him before. It has the opposite intended effect: Murasakibara wants to crush him, now.   
  
"I don't wanna," he says, simply, though he doesn't say why. Hana-chin glares at him like he knows  _exactly_ why.   
  
"If we lose..."   
  
"Then we lose."  
  
"You were a fucking stupid investment," says Hana-chin, voice clipped and furious as he leads the team back on court. Murasakibara wonders if he'd made a mistake as he watches Hana-chin lose his cool, watches as the score swings in Yosen's favor, and wonders if he'd just ensured that his school life will be a living hell from here on.   
  
He watches Muro-chin make his beautiful shot and decides it would suck more to never see it again.  
  


* * *

  
  
"You're not like the rest of them," says Muro-chin later, when he chances upon Murasakibara after the match.   
  
"Like how?" says Murasakibara, just to see him fumble with his words.  
  
"You're not— you didn't try to—"  
  
"You're wrong." Murasakibara thinks of all the basketball careers cut short because of him, of every crunch and snap of bone that Hana-chin orchestrated, of the bruises that bloom on guys' faces when he runs into them post-game. "I just didn't do it to you."  
  
Muro-chin frowns at that, like he doesn't quite know how to take it.   
  
"Well," he says, after a short while. He doesn't smile at Murasakibara this time, but he isn't frowning anymore either. "It's a start."


	2. himuro in the zone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10557714#cmt10557714) prompt.

The change becomes evident in the air before it does anywhere else. Atsushi is certain the rest of the team feels it too, something foreign edging towards the familiar, but he can't blame for not realizing what it is. They would've only felt it one other time before, and it had lasted less than a minute then.   
  
There's no mistaking it though. If the sudden static that sparked when they made skin contact didn't give it away, then the very sight—or lack thereof, given how swiftly it's happening—should do the trick.   
  
The buzzer sounds. It's another zero game, except this time Yosen's lead is twice the usual number, thanks to their shooting guard.  
  
Himuro becomes aware of the atmosphere only once they've reconvened at the locker room. He laughs, a little uncomfortably, asks, "what's everyone staring at?"  
  


* * *

  
  
"That can't be right," says Himuro, once Atsushi told him around several bites of potato chip. "I thought... you said—"  
  
"Don't stutter, Muro-chin," says Atsushi, licking the pads of his fingers. The news surprised him, but it hadn't been as surprising as when it happened to himself. "You're not stupid. You noticed it too."  
  
That makes Himuro smile, as he had a habit of doing when Atsushi unintentionally compliments him. "So I did." He glances down at his hands and curls them into fists, as if to hold onto his disbelief, then opens them again. One deep breath later, he's back to looking up at Atsushi.  
  
"How did I do it?"  
  
"Figure it out on your own."  
  
"Hmm." Himuro taps a finger against his chin, and like this he doesn't look like the team captain, doesn't look like the Himuro Tatsuya who wants to be seen like he knew the answer to everything (which Atsushi never bought in the first place.) He just looks like Muro-chin, who is as much of a mystery to himself as he is to everyone else. "Everything seemed to move in slow motion except for me. It was easy to steal the ball or pull off fakes because of that. I didn't have to think about my shots. I didn't have to think at all."  
  
He's wearing the same expression he takes on when he's lost: brows furrowed but eyes bright, excited at the possibilities. "But I don't remember how I got there."  
  
"If you don't know," says Atsushi as he tears open another pack of chips. "I can't tell you."  
  
When Himuro smiles again, it's a little helpless, a little fond. "That's that, then. No point in dwelling on it now."  
  
A part of Atsushi wants to believe him and put all this trouble behind them, but a smarter part of him realizes that nothing's ever 'that's that' when it comes to the most troublesome person he's ever known.   
  


* * *

  
  
"Atsushi," says Himuro after practice a few days later, and he has this Tone and this Look that say he's about to ask for something very annoying. The jumbo pack of chips he held in one hand helps the impression. "Play one-on-one with me."  
  
"Hah?" says Atsushi, though he takes the chips anyway. "What for?"  
  
"I just want to try a little experiment."  
  
With a sigh and a mournful glance at Jumbo Pack-chin as he sets it down, Atsushi follows Himuro to the middle of the court. "We're using the full court?"   
  
"Is that a problem?"  
  
"No," says Atsushi, getting into position. "I'll crush you either way."  
  
Himuro smiles, amicable as ever. "You can try."  
  


* * *

  
  
"Muro-chin," says Atsushi, head bowed and leaning his entire body weight on his knees in lieu of falling over, "what the hell?"  
  
"I thought you said there was no problem."  
  
"You're in the Zone," grits out Atsushi, frustration nearly as palpable as the static emitting from Himuro. "We're just  _practicing._ "  
  
This is usually where Himuro would laugh, confess that  _yeah, I'm overdoing it, aren't I?_ , but Atsushi knows that it never goes away on its own. Himuro's only option is to keep playing.  
  
"Come on, Atsushi. You said you'd crush me." Despite his words, there wasn't a trace of taunting in Himuro's voice. Merely a challenge posed, a certainty questioned.  
  
Atsushi growls under his labored breath, taking a hair tie from his pocket and pulling his sweat damp hair back from his forehead, incredulous and annoyed and amazed, all at once.  
  


* * *

  
  
It ends not with a bang, but with both of them lying on their backs on the floor, their exhales sharp echoes across the empty gymnasium. Himuro regains his breath and breaks the silence first.  
  
"I couldn't think of anything that had changed, aside from Taiga leaving. I wasn't entirely happy, I admit, but I was happier for him than I was jealous  _of_  him."   
  
"So Kagami's the reason," says Atsushi, not at all bitterly. Not at all because that when  _he_  did it, it had been because a certain someone had the audacity to cry on his face.  
  
"No," is Himuro's reply, and that gets Atsushi's attention. He turns his head and finds that Himuro's already been looking at him. "I dream of winning  _against_  him, but I only ever think of winning  _with_  you. So, actually, it's your fault, Atsushi."  
  
Atsushi ponders this new information, heart feeling like someone's dribbling it against his ribs. Finally, he says, "gross, Muro-chin."  
  
And here Himuro does laugh, pushing himself up on an elbow to hover over Atsushi. When he leans down, the static is all but gone, but the air isn't any less charged than before.


	3. in which they never met

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11748073#cmt11748073) prompt.

i.  
  
The decision to go to Akita for high school is easily made, almost laughably so. He's sure the others, even Mine-chin, had put more thought into their choices than he did, but Atsushi is a simple guy when it comes down to it. He wanted to get away from his overcrowded house, wanted to taste the Western delicacies in the Yosen cafeteria, and wanted to be bossed around by a pretty coach, if he absolutely had to be bossed around. And so up north it is, amidst the wind and snow and the chill that seeped into his dorm room even with the windows tightly shut.   
  
And so begin his quiet, uneventful high school years.

 

 

  
  
ii.  
  
He practices basketball when he's told to, though he refuses to move from under the hoop because surely his senpai can score without him, can't they? Masako-chin threatens him with her shinai almost daily, but it's empty because she lets him do it anyway. He's all alone, on that side of the court, but it's nothing different from his usual.  
  
He walks the halls by himself, buys himself snacks, and spends the rest of the time convincing himself that he needs no one else. Most people are either afraid or resentful of him, though he does nothing to rectify the fact. What's the point? He won't see them again when he graduates. There's no need to care about anyone, or anything, like basketball.  
  
Especially basketball.

 

 

  
  
iii.  
  
Aka-chin tells him to sit out the interhigh, so he does. He goes to Tokyo in the meantime, touring the candy shops he'd missed.  
  
He doesn't get lost.

 

 

  
  
iv.   
  
Half a year later, he goes up against Kuro-chin in the Winter Cup. He's flanked by a loud and annoying guy, who manages to goad Atsushi into leaving his spot from under the hoop and actually play. Sometime in the third quarter, Atsushi decides he's had enough, that he's going to sit the rest of this match out. Masako-chin and the others try their best to get him back in, but his simplicity is rivaled only by his stubbornness. He's going to pay for this later, he knows, the way he'd been forced to run laps until he got sick when he refused to play in the Interhigh, but that Kagami guy is impossible to beat.   
  
He watches his team lose, and feels nothing at all. Kuro-chin has won and proven his point, but when he looks at Atsushi, there's a hopelessness there he can't seem to place. 

 

 

  
  
v.  
  
Atsushi doesn't give Masako-chin the chance to punish him. He quits the team that very day and never looks back, though he does show up to watch the others play.   
  
Kise-chin and Mido-chin seem to have found somewhere they belonged, and even Aka-chin has taken command of his team the way he never could with the rest of them. Kuro-chin has that overbearing guy, and together they win the finals.   
  
Atsushi doesn't stay for the medal ceremony.

 

 

  
  
vi.   
  
Three years pass, and he leaves Akita behind for Tokyo again. Culinary school seems the logical path for him, so he follows it, swayed along by the tides without making a move to change it, much like how he'd stay stationary under the hoop what seems like a lifetime ago. Life isn't bad.   
  
It's just not very good either.   
  
vii.  
  
"Hey, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask—"  
  
"No."  
  
"It would only take a—"  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
Atsushi stops in his stride and takes pleasure at his stalker stumbling at the sudden change of pace. Well, he's not really a stalker, but he's been tailing Atsushi for more than ten seconds and Atsushi is exhausted already. But then the guy looks up after regaining his footing, and even with his hair artfully styled over half his face like that, he's easily the prettiest person Atsushi's ever seen.   
  
"I need directions, that's all. I haven't been in Japan for very long."  
  
"Why'd you have to ask me?"   
  
"You looked like you knew where you were going. There's a very determined air about you."  
  
The guy gives him a smile. Atsushi could've gone his whole life without seeing that smile and been fine, but now that he has, he's struck by the horrifying notion that he'd start missing it.   
  
"Where do you want to go," he says, finally, his heart a bass drum. The beat of it echoes in his ears as the guy's face brightens, looking at Atsushi like he's some kind of hero.  
  
"Nowhere in particular. I just wanted to go sightseeing. Do you have any ideas? I'm Himuro Tatsuya, by the way."  
  
Atsushi stares at him—at his pretty face, his kind smile, the way he's offering Atsushi his hand. Atsushi takes it, recognizing the callousness of his palm. He doesn't bring it up, though; there's no room for basketball here, not yet.   
  
"Murasakibara Atsushi," he says, and before he could psych himself out, adds, "I could take you, so you don't get lost."  
  
"Would you? I'd like that very much," says Muro-chin. "It's nice to meet you, Atsushi."  
  
He hasn't let go of Atsushi's hand yet. Atsushi decides he won't be the first to do so, squeezing it a little bit.   
  
"Mm. You too."


	4. murasakibara with a time machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11748073#cmt11748073) prompt.

i.  
  
It lands on Atsushi's lap quite literally, after he mistakenly tears open a bag of chips too roughly, resulting in its contents exploding all over the place. An upsetting phenomenon, but nothing new, and he resigns himself to picking up every single individual chip until he notices a small stopwatch-like thing amidst it all. On the outside of the bag, a surprise inside is advertised, maybe as some new marketing scheme by the company. Atsushi had expected a toy of some kind, which would least be cuter and more entertaining than whatever this is.   
  
Still, he pockets it instead of throwing it away.

 

 

  
  
ii.  
  
Muro-chin dies, senselessly, one sunlit, snowy Tuesday morning. It hadn't even been anything cool like he would've wanted; just an ordinary accident, a car skidding across the frozen road and hitting a passing student. Just like that, Muro-chin turns into a statistic, instead of being a basketball captain, a campus heartthrob, or Atsushi's companion.   
  
Not that Atsushi has anywhere to go, or anywhere he wants to go without Muro-chin there. He had tried, the first few weeks, to visit all the usual places he visited before he met Muro-chin, but they no longer held the same appeal without Muro-chin's annoying presence. Not even the candy shops, which must rank as Muro-chin's worst crime.   
  
So he stays in his room, forgoing basketball practice to stare at nothing. When his snacks run out and he feels too heavy to move, he stretches his arm to fiddle with whatever's in reach, to give his hands something to do. In this case, it's the stopwatch from the chips bag.  
  
He turns it over in his hand, smoothing his thumb over the glass, and tweaks the knob at the side.   
  
Suddenly, he's not in his room anymore. He's in the corridors, while the scenery outside is sunlit and snowy, and Muro-chin is there, walking beside Atsushi, whole and alive. 

 

 

  
  
iii.  
  
Muro-chin dies a second time—at the same hour, at the hands of the same driver—and it's only then that Atsushi realizes he could stop it from happening.

 

 

  
  
iv.

  
Atsushi repeats the day over and over, more times than he can count, but no matter how he tries, Muro-chin is still killed one way or another. It's getting exhausting, but when Atsushi thinks of all those days spent in his room, alone, dwelling on the way Muro-chin had smiled at him and how he'll never get to see it again, he finds himself turning the knob, finds himself taken back to that Tuesday morning before everything changed.   
  
Muro-chin has always been troublesome, but never more trouble than he's worth.

 

 

  
  
v.  
  
"Muro-chin," says Atsushi, a little after the one-hundredth time. He had rewound to a day earlier than usual, and there's a plea in his voice that neither of them have ever heard before. It holds Muro-chin's attention as it sets fire to Atsushi's cheeks. "Practice with me."   
  
Atsushi is treated to a confused gaze, that customary smile accompanying it. "This is new."  
  
"It's only for today," says Atsushi, frowning as he looks away. He thinks he understands, now; maybe the stopwatch was never meant to save Muro-chin at all.   
  
Maybe it was a way to show Atsushi what a good thing he had, that he didn't realize until it was gone.   
  
"If you say so," says Muro-chin, his hand on Atsushi's back as if to herd him towards the gym, as if he might change his mind without a countermeasure.   
  
Atsushi isn't going anywhere. He stays, plays one-on-one with Muro-chin, weathering the sweat on his brow and the ache in his knees. If this is Muro-chin's last day, if he's alive for the last time, Atsushi wants him to be happy.   
  
If Muro-chin's wide, ecstatic grin is any indication, then at least Atsushi succeeded.

 

 

  
  
vi.   
  
The next day is sunlit and snowy as ever. Muro-chin is walking beside Atsushi, smiling as he talks about their practice from yesterday. From the corner of his eye, Atsushi sees a car skidding wildly out of control in the distance, heading towards them.  
  
He makes up his mind; he holds Muro-chin's hand.


End file.
